Are MRNA vaccines any riskier than other vaccines?
Are MRNA vaccines any riskier than other vaccines?
I have a friend who is anti mRNA vaccines as they are so new.
Are they?
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The approved mRNA vaccines went through the same approval process as any vaccine. And once approved, they are monitored for safety like any other vaccine. Between pre-approval testing and post-approval monitoring, we would have detected any issues. So the proof is in the pudding — lots of countries have approved them and none have found risks that are worse than the disease they protect against (currently only COVID but there are more mRNA vaccines in the works).
There's also no reason to fear the way they work. Other vaccines introduce antigens (molecules that your body doesn't like and produces antibodies to attack) in various ways — sometimes with a weakend virus, sometimes with a dead virus, sometimes just the antigens themselves. mRNA is just another way to introduce antigens so your body learns to fight them. For a little while your body follows the instructions in the mRNA to produce the antigens, and then your body learns to attack those antigens. It's not all that different from the way other vaccines work. mRNA breaks down pretty quickly in your body so it's not even in your system for very long, and there's no mechanism in the body for mRNA to produce lasting changes. So it's a lot like you got a cold: for a little while the cold makes your body produce molecules, then your body fights it all off, and then in the end there's no permanent change except your body learned to fight off that particular antigen.
Thanks, that's what I thought. They always point to the recorded side effects and I always counter with the fact that the disease is a lot lot worse than the cure, and that it's a classic trolley problem. If the equation is kill one to save a million, you always kill one.
Or am I missing something?
and that it’s a classic trolley problem
that's not a trolley problem. The trolley problem is an ethics debate about whether it's more ethical to allow multiple people die or take the action of saving that multiple people, condemning another to die instead. Not taking action, however, is itself an action- a choice- that is being made and the problem is entirely disconnected from real life...
The question of "vaccinate or not vaccinate" is an entirely different question. the question is, should you take an exceedingly small probability of manageable risks (allergic reactions, sore arms) to mitigate a rather high probability lethal risk (long term hospitalization, coma, death. death like symptoms.)
in the moderna vaccine, There's a 10% chance your arm is going to have swelling/redness/soreness. 1.2% chance that the area effective is large enough to even really notice. and for the more severe risk of alergic reactions, that's 2.5 cases per million doses, and is easily managed simply by maintaining the 15 minute observation after injection. (during which time staff are on hand to deal with the anaphylactic shock, which makes it substantially unlikely to cause permanent harm.)
the pfizer-biontech vaccine has similar mild reactions, that usually clear up in a single day, and a whopping 11 cases per million doses for allergic reactions (and 80% of those cases happened to people with an already diagnosed hypersensitivity to the PEG.)
this is compared to the probability of, you know, dying, from being unvaccinated. Per the CDC... yes, the vaccine is highly effective and extremely safe.
Also be a little wary of the 'recorded side effects'. In the UK (and I'm sure its not alone), the NHS asked people to record any medical event that happened for a period post-vaccination that could conceivably be a side effect, in an abundance of caution - the idea that they could then sift the data for any actual side effects.
People often quote this raw data 'look n people had heart attacks after vaccination' - without factoring the expected number of heart attacks if that cohort had not been vaccinated. There's some great stuff in the raw data like people who suffered twisted ankles. Reasonable to record, as say a statistically significant increase in twisted ankles could (say) suggest balance problems were a side effect (they aren't)
Ah, a classic correlation is not causation situation. Thanks!
Not even that, more that the correlation might not be there in the first place.
In the US, this is often cited as "All-cause mortality". Which means every tracked medication and procedure has a certain (extremely low) risk of car crashes, even in non-drivers.
The trolley problem is a bit different because its result depends on what kind of person you are.
People who think logically will always pick the option that kills less people. Some people who are emotionally driven hate the idea that manipulating the lever means you are first hand causing the death of said one person, whereas the 5 people, while who could be saved, didnt die outright because of a situation you as the person created.
I love pointing out to your "emotional" people ... that they are choosing to not act, and therefore responsible for those five people dying.
the proper answer is to flip the switch, and then do everything else you can to save that one person- like running to stop the train, or getting the person off the tracks, or maybe getting one of the five off the tracks and sending them to run and stop the train (buying you more time?) while you go and get the next guy off the tracks....
Alternatively, if you wanna be misanthropic,
im using the term emotional as its usually what's tied with pathos when talking about pathos/logos/egos. Hence some (as not all people who run on emotional decision making) will make a conscious decision to not pull the lever due to the above situation.
some people will convince theirself that the feigned ignorance of the switch is their way out of the situation because they absolutely despise the fact that they had anything to do with the direct death of someone. Originally I never thought of this mindset (as im very logic oriented) till I met someone who answered the question that way in person and broke down their reasoning. It's never an all emotional person thing, but some will willingly choose to not act in self preservation of their sanity.
… but some will willingly choose to not act in self preservation of their sanity.
That’s where the trolly problem is problematic. It’s fundamentally designed to force a choice where one or more people will die.
In real life there really are not any choices typical of that binary choice- and more importantly, choosing to not do something will haunt you even more than the opposite.
How often do we stew over lost opportunities? Roads not taken?
its a question with a binary choice, choosing to change the situation defeats the purpose of the choice regardless of the situation. it's possible to modify the choice in such a way that the question of binary choice became a situation, e.g seeing a camera feed and a button at some remote location.
Philosophical questions are often impractical.
Guilt and emotions are also often illogical. We can rationalize all sorts of things. In this case, it's easy enough to rationalize that we had no hand in creating the situation; we played no part in the results and bear no responsibility. We can wash ourselves of any guilt.
We already do this constantly- there is surely some suffering in your city and your life. Homeless people, starving children, whatever else. I'm betting that you, personally, could do something (or something more) to help them. Whether it's picking up a hammer with Habitat for Humanity, or choosing to spend a little extra to get the "Slavery-free" chocolate instead of the regular kind. But you don't. None of us do, at least not all that we reasonably can. Why is that? I'm making a choice to do nothing on these, how is it any different?
It's not about who created the situation, it just exists for whatever reason. It's about intervening.
hence
hate the idea that manipulating the lever means you are first hand causing the death of said one person
that act on its own is intervening into the situation vs the other which is not.
because of a situation you as the person created
Maybe I misinterpreted your comment here; the situation exists not because of anything, it's just there. The binary choice (or is it truly binary if there are supposedly three?) is the conundrum.
The situation they created was to kill one person, versus the situation that existed was that 5 people would die.
The difference is between action and inaction and the fact that it's easier to say "you caused something" if you took some action than if you simply didn't take an action.
Deaths were not mentioned at all.